Transition from School or Other to FE College
When is it advisable to make contact with a College?
Who is the best person to approach at College?
Who may need to be involved at the transition stage?
How can Colleges prepare for D/deaf or hard of hearing students?
What is the role of the disability advisor or support tutor?
What is the role of the student in transition?
When is it advisable to make contact with a College?
It is advisable for a student with additional support needs to make contact with the College well in advance of the course starting, especially if communication support or technology may need to be sourced.
The support needed by a deaf or hard or hearing person is likely to be established at a needs assessment interview at College (see section.)
Experience varies from college to college in working with deaf students. Early contact may be necessary to identify equipment and support personnel in time for the course starting. Colleges are obliged to anticipate the needs of deaf students by law.
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Who is the best person to approach at College?
Student disability advisors are likely to organise communication support and may be the best individual to start with. Alternately, direct contact with the course tutor in person at an Open Day, or via email or phone may be preferable.
If the student is attending an Open Day, he or she should request an interpreter or communication support worker if needed usually through the Student Services department or a Disability Advisor.
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Who may need to be involved at the transition stage?
Transition is likely to be most successful for a young person when the agencies or people involved work in partnership. Partners may include:
- Young person
- School representative – Teacher of the Deaf or Guidance Teacher
- Communication Support Worker/Interpreter
- Education Psychologist
- Careers Service representative
- College representative – Course Tutor and/or Support Tutor
- Other agency e.g. RNID
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How can Colleges prepare for D/deaf or hard of hearing students?
There are many general practices a Further Education College can adopt to ease the transition process for D/deaf and hard of hearing students. These include:
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What is the role of the disability advisor or support tutor? This will vary from college to college. However, it is recommended that students with additional support needs are offered:
- support in communicating with course tutors about their needs
- an outline of support on offer by Learning Support
- the opportunity for regular reviews
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What is the role of the student in transition?
- If a student does not disclose his/her support needs to a College, then staff cannot be reasonably expected to put support strategies in place, so it is important that students disclose his/her needs to a member of College staff. The course tutor or student advisor is likely to be the best person to disclose to. This is ideally done before the start of a course to ensure that adjustments can be made, and that a full qualification can be obtained upon successful completion of the course.
- It is a good idea for students to make notes about any points s/he might want to raise in advance of meetings. If a support plan is put in place for an individual at College, it is likely that the student will be expected to participate in reviews of support.
- The student may is likely to also have a responsibility for completing forms for fees on time, and for submitting them to the relevant authorities.
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Useful Links
Achievements of Deaf Pupils in Scotland http://www.education.ed.ac.uk/adps/
BRITE People Page http://www.brite.ac.uk/resources/participants_list.htm List of college staff who have participated in the BRITE training programme, a good first contact when enquiring about available support and equipment. back to top |
